It’s the annual rite of March. The very best part of the sport rolls around, and officials can’t help but take control where they have no business.

Who among us isn’t completely pumped that the lasting memory of the West region final is three officials huddled around a television monitor — instead of Wisconsin returning to the Final Four for the first time since 2000?

Wouldn’t you know it, those same officials refused to answer questions from a pool reporter about the most important call of the game — deferring instead to a canned response from the NCAA coordinator of officials that read like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Wah, wah wah wah, wah …

The next thing you know, Lucy pulled the ball from Charlie and the rest is history.

Look, it’s not good calls or bad calls or poorly-timed calls. It’s not charge-block or any other nonsensical call that becomes as much of the story as the game itself.

It’s the complete lack of consistency in what is called and why — and how it dictates pace of the game and ultimately, the outcome.

Excuse me if I’m not geeked by Wisconsin’s thrilling last-second 64-63 overtime victory over Arizona to advance to the sport’s biggest stage, or Michigan’s last-second victory over Tennessee or Michigan State finding a way against Virginia or — do I need to keep going?

Somehow this beautifully athletic game in the regular season transforms itself into ground and pound, defense-first in the NCAA Tournament. Why, you ask?

Because that’s the easy way to call it as an official — and more important, the easy way to control it. Those who can play salty perimeter defense and find a way to make shots are those who win big games.

“It was a knuckle on knuckle fight,” said Wisconsin forward Sam Dekker. “If I wasn’t wearing my mouth guard, my teeth would’ve been on the ground.”

This is what the grand tournament has become. Don’t believe it? Look who’s left: Florida, the nation’s best defensive team, and Wisconsin, annually one of the nation’s best defenses. If defense-first Michigan State beats UConn on Sunday to advance to the Final Four, there will be no denying it.

The calendar turns to March, and officials forget they’re there to facilitate the game, not control it. They pull way back on calling hand checks (like it or not), which allows teams to extend to the perimeter and overplay, forcing opponents to win on dribble drives and creating shots.

And that all but eliminates any semblance of consistently winning with prepared offensive sets. Or as Kentucky coach John Calipari screamed to his team early in Friday’s Midwest semifinal win over Louisville: “Run something!”

This, of course, leads to a completely unwatchable 45 minutes of two teams shooting 39 percent each and combining for all of 19 assists. That’s putrid.

It wasn’t until overtime, when those same officials went from controlling the game to calling nothing, did the athleticism and playmaking of both teams begin to take over. That is, until the game was on the line.

On the last series — after letting both teams play for nearly five minutes — an official called a player control foul on Arizona’s Nick Johnson with 3.2 seconds remaining to essentially end Arizona’s season. We thought.

It was then when officials overturned an out-of-bounds call on the ensuing play — despite Arizona’s Rondae Hollis-Jefferson clearly fouling Wisconsin guard Traevon Jackson — to give the Wildcats one more shot that Johnson couldn’t get off.

You can’t call nothing for 4:57, then call a player control foul, then not call an obvious foul a play later. Here’s a novel idea: call nothing. Or call everything.

“I thought it was a really, really tough call,” Wildcats coach Sean Miller said. He paused for a moment, and who knows if he was mentally replaying the player control call or dumbfounded by the uncertainty of it all.

“I’m going to stop there,” he said. “I’ve already been fined.”

Someone has to continue this fight. There’s simply no reason that Wisconsin — not exactly UNLV from the 1990s but Bo Ryan’s best offensive team in Madison and a group that has scored at least 70 points in 25 of 36 previous games — can’t find a way to get more than 64 points in 45 minutes.

Or this Arizona team, with a lottery pick (Aaron Gordon) and two other guys who will play in the NBA (Hollis-Jefferson, Johnson), not scratching more than 63 points in 45 minutes.

Midway through the first half, after Wisconsin was in the middle of scoring 16 points in 14 minutes, Ryan let it fly at an official and got a technical. Don’t think there wasn’t a means to an end there.

“I was wound up for many reasons,’ Ryan said, slowly walking that delicate line between analysis and an early morning call from the NCAA about a fine for criticizing officiating. “You don’t get these opportunities very often. To be in that position … there are things I saw that might have been imaginary.”

That was sarcasm, everyone. But there’s nothing funny about our madness being stolen from March.